If you played the HD-2D remake of III this area will look very familiar. It's also an excellent place to level up, so we're going to do that before we challenge Xenlon again.
As per series norm, defeating Xenlon in under 35 turns will grant you a wish. After that it requires you to win in 25, then 15 for every subsequent wish.
Your potential wishes are as follows:
- Obtain a powerful weapon: Get Rubiss's Sword. It's the second strongest sword in the game and casts Kazap when used as an item.
- Learn a damage dealing ability: Get a Critical Claim scroll. This is very useful for farming Liquid Metal slimes!
- Learn a magic magnifying ability: Get a Channel Anger scroll.
- Learn the secrets of Puff-Puff: Get a Power Puff-Puff Scroll.
- Play at a new Tombola stall: Puts a tombola stall in Cloudsgate Citadel where you can play to win Metal King gear for 3 tickets a spin. (The odds of doing so are very low though, so be prepared to either acquire a lot of tickets or savescum constantly)
Some strategy
- Use Dragon Slash, preferably powered up with Oomph and/or Egg On. Wild Side and Divide will also greatly increase the damage you deal, though these cost a lot of MP to use.
- Xenlon will Disrupt your buffs frequently, so don't get too overeager with them. This does cost him one of his two turns per round, though, so don't stop casting them on his account.
- The "baleful stare" move will put a party member to sleep regardless of any resistance they have to it. Definitely annoying.
- Xenlon is vulnerable to sleep, so have Peronel knock him out and then use Matilda's Persecutter to deal massive damage.
I forgot to retrieve the other Dragon Slash scroll from the Quagmire Cave so I did that off-camera.